


Slings and Arrows

by royaltyisshe64



Category: Billary - Fandom, Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11381496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royaltyisshe64/pseuds/royaltyisshe64
Summary: Bill's past transgressions come back to haunt him.





	Slings and Arrows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



October 9, 2016

Bill clasped his shaking hands together still more tightly in his lap, waiting with considerable anxiety for the second presidential debate to begin. The additional pressure provided by the band of gold in its accustomed position – third finger, left hand, where it had resided (sometimes precariously) for nearly forty-one years – did not provide the usual feelings of security. Stability. Reassurance. Today, those affirmations had become drowned out by the rebirth of the old shame. The shame had never really died, he realized, only been rendered dormant, lulled into slumber by his wife’s remarkable capacity for love and forgiveness.

He deserved neither.

But she gave him both.

-

Curiosity piqued by the patently absurd notion of Donald Trump engaging in some kind of televised debate prep, Bill kept his suite’s television on CNN, the dull roar of the pundits providing an odd white noise of sorts as he tried in vain to calm his jittery nerves. His wife was down the hall, even after four full days, still rehearsing obsessively for any conceivable contingency that entered her mind, drilling facts and statistics and honing her opening and closing statements to perfection. No matter how hard she worked, how clear it became that this routine was over-the-top, superfluous, polishing what already gleamed, she remained obstinate. She could be better; she had to be better. 

That wasn’t what worried him. Rationally, there was no concern about how Hillary would perform tonight. She was a masterful debater, always had been. Against worthy opponents like Obama (and, behind closed doors, Bill himself), who could keep up intellectually, she still had a magnificent, thoroughly irritating ability to emerge triumphant without so much as breaking a sweat. Against an imbecile of Trump’s caliber, she was capable of absolute carnage. The Donald clumsily wielded a golf club against her rapier. They were fighting completely different battles, but any objective observer would be honor-bound to note her vastly superior skill and ability and her opponent’s supporters could blithely ignore those facets in favor of their man’s inappropriate, ineffective displays of brute force. He supposed the edginess came with the territory as a political spouse: a human fear engendered by seeing the one you love manhandled ruthlessly and relentlessly, with your capacity to protect them reduced to virtually nil.

His attention was drawn abruptly back to the television screen. Faces, names barely registered in any conscious way, but in an instant, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. The primal response came first. When it sank in, the nausea only worsened. The shame threatened to consume him.

Paula Jones. Juanita Broaddrick. Kathleen Willey.

They sat with Donald Trump now, recounting their version of events – narratives that bore little resemblance to his own recollections. In the latter, he certainly didn’t come out smelling of roses but neither could he be called a rapist. Had he overstepped boundaries? Absolutely. Was it wrong? Yes. Unquestionably. It was awful. He was awful. There were no excuses, no exculpatory justifications, least of all for the way he’d treated Hillary.

There were three women here, but there could be so many more, so many others. Names he didn’t even recall, faces and figures he’d been acquainted with for only one night, maybe two. His betrayals of his wife were legion.

And now here it all was again: a mercenary political tool, designed to wreak both personal devastation and public condemnation. Of him, yes – and that was fair enough, in its way – but predominantly of Hillary. That injustice was profound. Reassigning the sins of the husband to the wife defied logic and decency in equal measure.

Then the fourth woman caught his eye. Kathy Shelton. Not one of his. No, she had been a survivor of sexual assault, revictimized by a particularly poorly constructed area of the criminal justice system, whose maltreatment had been scapegoated solely and squarely onto the shoulders of Hillary Rodham, the attorney tasked with defending her attacker. He remembered that case, how sick it made Hillary, how badly she’d wanted out. No matter how many times the facts of the situation were presented – the real facts, not the emotionally charged scenario they had been warped into – Kathy Shelton’s undeniable ordeal would continue to be exploited for base purposes, especially when taken in conjunction with his own transgressions.

The door opened, startling Bill. His wife’s form rapidly became blurred with tears and, before he knew it, he was wrapped tightly in her arms, sobbing against her chest.

No matter how many times it happened, it never felt less cowardly. Less perverse. Hillary was comforting him for the pain he had caused her. He hated his weakness, his propensity for self-pity, his appalling indiscretions and all the trouble they’d caused – continued to cause.

“That son of a bitch,” Hillary murmured into his hair. “Honey, this isn’t about you or me or – anything you did. He’s deflecting attention away from that tape. He’s projecting, and the only people it’s going to work on are the people who already believe it. And there’s nothing we can do about them.”

Bill nodded, still emitting great, weepy gasps. He removed his face from her softness and warmth, that spot that always felt like home, and forced his eyes to meet hers, almost drowning in love his favorite shade of blue. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby. You don’t deserve this. It’s all – all my fault. I don’t deserve you. I’m sorry. I’m s –“

She stopped him with a tender kiss.

“I love you.” A simple statement of fact, delivered bluntly. Hillary reached around him, punctuating the remark by turning the television off with a click. “Donald Trump is an idiot who doesn’t want to debate me on real issues –“

“He can’t,” Bill interjected, eliciting one of the smiles he lived for. Girlish and utterly besotted.

“ – and is trying to turn American democracy into Jerry Springer or something, and I won’t let him.” She handed him a Kleenex. “Now, I need you to quiz me on these Obamacare numbers again. I’m gonna tear that fucker limb from limb.”

-

Trump had barely made his way through his first statement, somehow, despite his interminable rambling, failing to come anywhere near an answer to the question asked, and Bill was already on the verge of screaming. The sheer incompetence of this man was beyond belief. How dare he share a platform with Hillary? How dare they ask her to treat him as a serious, legitimate candidate for the presidency? Insulting, that’s what this was. Insulting. To Hillary and to America.

Now Trump’s attempt to pivot away from discussion of the _Access Hollywood_ tape had transmogrified into a tangent about ISIS and the apparent necessity to close the borders. Something to that effect, anyway.

Anderson Cooper was attempting feebly to corral the wayward candidate and guide him back to the topic at hand. “So, for the record, you’re saying you never did that?”

Bill’s eyes locked onto Hillary, an island of carefully controlled calm in the maelstrom. She had to be his focal point if he wanted to keep his temper in check and remain inscrutable, as he knew he must. He saw her brain at work and heard the fruits of that labor when, with evenness of tone and clarity of content, she was given her turn to speak, to espouse her values. Restless movement to the left drew his attention. Pouting, ambling in sweeping circles around his half of the stage, Trump was obviously growing irritated by his inability to rattle his opponent, by the continued scrutiny of his own behavior. Bill felt the crash coming. He tried to will the rest of the world out of existence. Just Hillary. Only Hill. Then it hit.

“If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse. Mine are words, and his was action. His was what he’s done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women.”

He saw her jaw tighten, her hands clench. He felt the gaze of the entire room shift to him, four pairs of eyes in particular directing daggers to the back of his head. She wasn’t looking. She was the only one. And he knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t keep it together if she allowed herself to go there, to let her heart bleed. It was beneath her dignity to allow a creature like Donald Trump to draw that out of her.

“And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.”

Applause.

Bill could hear where it had started; he wasn’t surprised. A flash of pain crossed Hillary’s face, just for a microsecond. It was swiftly replaced by a game smile as she launched into her rebuttal, refusing to be finagled into addressing each point of the allegations individually. ‘She is so good,’ he thought, feeling that familiar ache of inadequacy. First sharp, and then gradually dulling back into oblivion. Chelsea squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, but kept his concentration on that remarkable woman who had, for some crazy reason, agreed to marry him and, even more inexplicably, stayed with him in spite of it all.

“When they go low, you go high.”

She got applause of her own with that line.

‘That’s my girl.’

-

When it was all over, he hung back, applying his considerable charm diligently to sections of the crowd he knew Hillary would be unable to reach personally. Bill did not want his presence to become a talking point, to sabotage her night even more than it had already. And he didn’t want to cross paths with Trump. That was the most significant factor in his decision. He wouldn’t know what to do. He knew too well what he wanted to do, but that would hardly help matters. Aside from a broken nose, it would be giving that man precisely what he wanted and not anything like what he deserved. Not worth it.

And how he wanted to confront Trump – to do something, to say something – after being forced to sit and watch as he bullied and harangued Hillary incessantly for two hours. He had shambled all over the stage, frequently looming behind her like some menacing behemoth. A crude attempt to leverage his bulk and her small stature into intimidation, to unnerve her, to diminish her, however fleetingly. He talked over her, interrupted, insulted, threatened. Declared outright that he would personally ensure her incarceration. But she never wavered. He had underestimated her familiarity with bullies. Bill had never before been grateful for those excruciating years of experience, for Hugh and all the others who had shouted and doubted and denigrated. Who had taught her, however unwittingly, how to fight.

Finally, he made his way over to Hillary and Chelsea – his girls, his beautiful, brilliant girls. He kept diligently to the limited physical contact they had, as a couple, agreed to allow themselves publicly, but it was torture. The second they were beyond the cameras’ intrusive glare, she buried herself in his arms. Just for a moment. Just long enough for him to whisper, “You’re incredible. I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was like pulling teeth to write and research. I apologize for taking so long with it and hope it's worth the wait. This one goes out to Nessuno!
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading - and for your kind comments. They really do mean so much.


End file.
